‘Going in Style’

If you were going to make a bank-heist comedy starring three actors around the age of 80, you couldn’t do much better than casting Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin.

And as “Going in Style” proves, give those three very talented gentleman a halfway-decent script and a competent director, and the entertainment value will be there.

That “competent” director, interestingly, is Zach Braff, who, at 41, is about half the age of each of his “Going in Style” stars. Braff, once the star of the medical sitcom “Scrubs,” is the writer-director of the acclaimed 2004 indie comedy-drama “Garden State” and 2014’s “Wish I Was Here,” which he funded with the help of a Kickstarter campaign and which received a mixed reception. Braff also stars in both movies.

He is nowhere to be seen in “Going in Style,” clearly putting his focus on making an effective studio comedy and letting his stars shine. And shine they do.

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A remake of the 1979 movie of the same name, “Going in Style” has Caine’s Joe, Freeman’s Willie and Arkin’s Albert trying to enjoy their retirement years. The trio had worked together for years at the same New York City manufacturing company and now spend their days having breakfast in the same diner, playing bocce while wearing their matching “Easy Rollers” shirts and even watching “The Bachelorette” together.

“Turn it off,” Joe says after the beautiful young woman selects, in his opinion, the wrong male suitor. “It’s a travesty.”

What’s truly upsetting to Joe, Albert and Willie, however, is their similar financial situations.

“Going in Style” begins with Joe visiting his Brooklyn bank, which has sent him a notice that he has defaulted on his mortgage payments — they’ve tripled, by the way, despite Joe being told at the time of his refinancing such a hike was very unlikely. Also, the slimy bank manager informs him, the direct-deposit checks from the aforementioned company have ceased, which is a huge problem for Joe, who lets his daughter and 14-year-old granddaughter he adores live in his house.

Immediately after this exchange, the sound of machine gun bullets echoes throughout the bank. A group of masked men proceed to rob it, one of them coming in close contact with Joe but treating him with respect.

“I think I may rob a bank,” he tells his pals a short time later.

If those guys can do it, why can’t they? Plus, that specific bank — along with hiking Joe’s mortgage rate — is helping to screw the aforementioned company’s retirees out of their pensions.

They test their skills as thieves at a local grocery store — where, incidentally, an employee played by the still-charming Ann-Margret has a thing for the grumpy Albert — and let’s just say it doesn’t go well. The always-funny Kenan Thompson of “Saturday Night Live” plays the store’s manager, who takes mercy on the trio, imploring them to take some coupons but not steal from his market again.

Enlisting the help of a criminal with bank-robbing experience, Jesus (John Ortiz, “Kong: Skull Island”), the guys work to up their game as the date of the heist approaches. We get a training montage, which sees them case the bank and even work out; while it feels obligatory it is nonetheless quite enjoyable.

And the heist? We’ll just say it’s actually rather suspenseful, a credit to Braff. Like the rest of “Going in Style,” it feels like very different from “Garden State,” which, if nothing else, speaks to the director’s versatility.

The formulaic script by Theodore Melfi (“St. Vincent,” “Hidden Figures”) pushes the right buttons, giving us a sense of our aged heroes and, by the end, tying up all the loose story threads.

Again, though, the job of both Braff and Melfi, at the end of the day, was to get out of the way of Freeman, Arkin and Caine and let them work. While none of them stretches his acting ability in the least — they all play the types we have come to associate with them — each is highly enjoyable. Caine and Freeman are delightful when their characters interact with their respective granddaughters — a scene when Freeman talks to his via video chat is — adorable — while the softer side of Arkin’s Albert is unearthed in his scenes with Ann-Margret.

Like myriad other films starring seniors, “Going in Style” doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, and that’s fine. It’s exactly what you would expect, but it does, in fact, go in style.

‘Going in Style’

About the Author

Mark is a lifelong Northeast Ohioan and an Ohio University grad. Along with loving music, movies and television, he is crazy about sports and tech. Reach the author at mmeszoros@news-herald.com
or follow Mark on Twitter: @MarkMeszoros.